Statistical Shortcomings: How Our Bad Data Hurts Victims

January is human trafficking awareness month. In recognition, we are re-posting our 3 part series on human trafficking myths that are frequently stated but always wrong. This is part 2. See part 1 - posted on Monday - and look for part 3 on Friday.

"Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better do better." 
                                                 - Maya Angelou

These words by poet Maya Angelou should be a source of inspiration for the anti-trafficking movement. While we have tried to convey the importance of human trafficking using statistics and numbers, the truth is that we do not have reliable data to support many of the "conventional wisdoms" that have developed about human trafficking.

Myth #4: We Know the Global Prevalence of Human Trafficking

Everywhere we turn we see a different statistic about the prevalence of human trafficking globally. As just a sample, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime estimated in 2009 that 4 million people are trafficked each year. Kevin Bales, author of several books on human trafficking, estimated in 2011 that the number was closer to 27 million. The International Labor Organization (ILO) in 2015 estimated the number of people engaged in forced labor to be 21 million. The U.S. State Department's Trafficking in Persons Report (TIP) relies on ILO data and is generally assumed to be the most accurate data available - but it is still flawed.

Truth: The truth is that we don't know how many people are being trafficked globally. The data just doesn't exist so it is impossible to count data that we do not have. If we don't have underlying baseline data, then we can't say much else about local prevalence, hot spots or hubs either. Bottom line: we know that human trafficking is common and occurs in all countries throughout the world. Isn't that enough?

Myth #5: We are a "Hub" for Human Trafficking or We Rank #3 in the Nation

We've all read the statistics: "Houston ranks No. 1 among U.S. cities for human trafficking," "Chicago is a national hub of human trafficking," "Michigan ranks third in the country for human trafficking," "The I-75 corridor is a hub for human trafficking."

Truth: The truth is that we don't know how many people are being trafficked in the United States. Currently, we do not have a systematic way to count human trafficking cases. There are no reliable rankings of U.S. cities. Frequently, rankings come from the number of total calls made to the National Human Trafficking Resource Center tip line or from measuring recovery rates from sporadic law enforcement actions. The problem is that we know that this crime is severely under reported. We cannot rely on calls to tip lines or successful FBI raids to determine the size and location of the problem. 

What we do know is that human trafficking is a problem in every state and every city in the United States. We also know that human trafficking is a problem in the suburbs and rural communities as well. Focusing on "hubs" perpetuates the dangerous myth that it is a big city problem, or that it happens elsewhere and not in the community that I am living in.

Myth #6: We Know the Economic Impact

You may have read that human trafficking is the third most profitable business for organized crime or that it is the second most profitable form of organized  criminal activity alongside drug trafficking and arms dealing.

Truth: The truth is that the economic impact of human trafficking is unknown. If we don't have data on prevalence, we can't have data on profits. Organizations who used to rely on economic impact data have started to shy away from using it based on its unreliability. 

What we do know is that human trafficking is a profitable business for traffickers with low start-up costs, an unlimited supply of vulnerable human beings to exploit, a strong consumer demand to purchase human beings, and high profit margins for traffickers who sell and resell their "human product" numerous times.

We don't need mythical numbers to convey the importance of human trafficking. The purchase and sale of human beings is wrong. Every life is valuable and the trafficking of a single person is serious enough to warrant our action.

Take Action: 

• Now that you know the myths be sure that you don't perpetuate them. 
• Share these myths with other caring individuals who are working to fight human trafficking. This means correcting the record when you hear myths repeated.
• Get acquainted with the "Perfect Victim" and other myths from part 1 of the series.

This blog was written by Carrie Booth Walling (MHTTF) based on the research of Bridgette Carr, Clinical Professor of Law and Director of the University of Michigan Law School's Human Trafficking Clinic.

Are you spreading Myths or Facts?

January is human trafficking awareness month. In recognition, we are re-posting our 3 part series on myths about human trafficking that are frequently stated but always wrong.

When we know better we do better. When we perpetuate myths about human trafficking we harm victims.  

Myth #1: Human Trafficking = Sex Trafficking

Truth: The phrases "human trafficking" and "sex trafficking" are not synonyms. When you use them synonyms you make labor trafficking victims invisible.  Human Trafficking can take different forms including labor trafficking and/or sex trafficking.

At its core, human trafficking is a form of compelled service. It is the use of force, fraud or coercion to control one person by another. It may entail physical or psychological violence. It may include hard or dangerous labor for little or no pay; and it involves economic exploitation - traffickers profit off of victims.

Myth #2: The "Perfect" Victim

It is a myth that there is such a thing as a "perfect" victim. The myth suggests that real victims always accept help, don't return to their traffickers, and will quickly recognize us as their rescuers. This myth is dangerous because it suggests that victims who don't fit this profile are not real victims, that they made a choice. By continuing to hold this myth, we re-victimize victims by telling them "you are only a victim when you do what we want you to do." 

Truth: All individuals who have been compelled into service are victims. This includes minors in the sex industry and individuals who were forced, coerced or fraudulently tricked to provide labor or sexual services. By definition, victims have been exploited, and it is this exploitation that makes them victims, not their behavior during the exploitation or after. Further, when children are exploited there is never any possibility of consent.

Myth #3: "Our" kids are taken from malls and movie theaters

What do we signal when we add the modifier "our" before kids? Don't ALL children have the right to be safe and free? Don't use "our" carelessly when you talk about kids. It suggests that some kids are not ours. Movie theaters and malls are not uniquely hotbeds of human trafficking and most victims are not kidnapped from public spaces. This idea perpetuates sensationalist media myths and also encourages the "perfect victim" narrative above.

Truth: This does not mean that child trafficking is not a problem. It is a problem that minors are being exploited for labor and sold for sex. We just need real facts and there is no nationally representative, comprehensive sample of what victims look like. Traffickers prey on vulnerability in their victims. These vulnerabilities cross barriers of age, race, sex, class, gender, ethnicity, religion and nationality, as well as other differences. Kids can be victimized by people they know, who pretend to love them and who promise them a better life.

The bottom line about human trafficking is really quite simple: It is wrong to buy people and it is wrong to sell people. We just don't do it and no one should. Anyone who is bought, sold or exploited is a victim. All victims have human dignity and deserve our care, help and respect.

TAKE ACTION: Now that you know these myths, be sure that you don't perpetuate them.  Share these myths with other caring individuals who are working to fight human trafficking.

This blog was written by Carrie Booth Walling (MHTTF) based on the work of Bridgette Carr, Clinical Professor of Law and Director of the University of Michigan Law School's Human Trafficking Clinic.

TraffickCam App: New Tool for ALL of US to Fight Human Sex Trafficking!

TraffickCam is an innovative free app that is designed so that anyone with a smart phone can join the fight against human sex trafficking. All one needs to do is upload pictures of their hotel room (no people!) and leave the rest to TraffickCam and law enforcement.

Hotels are often venues for commercial sex trade, too many times involving minors. Traffickers often post pictures of their victims posing in hotel rooms for advertising. These photos can be used to help find the victims as well as for evidence against the perpetrator if police can find where the pictures were taken from.

TraffickCam is a free app designed to help law enforcement in this fight. It can be downloaded for free onto any smart phone. From there, the public is asked to upload four pictures of their hotel room at various angles according to instructions, as well as the name and room number of the hotel. No personal information is collected.

The app verifies the location with GPS and adds the photos to a very large database of hotel images. Features of the room are converted into a series of data points that can be matched to online photos advertising sex trafficking using image analysis technology.

So far, the app has been downloaded over 90,000 times! There are over 150,000 hotels in the database including over 1.6 million photos. Let's all do our part and help law enforcement.  With this app, help requires very little effort and potential rewards are great.

Take Action: Download TraffickCam for Adroid devices at Google Play. Download TraffickCam for iPhone and iPad at the App Store.

Next time you stay at a hotel, use the app to take and submit photos to law enforcement to help fight sex trafficking.

It Happened to My Family - It can Happen to Any of Us

The worst phone call that any parent can receive is that their child is missing.  This is the call that I received in the Fall of 2011 from a relative that I had entrusted to care for my child.  The call went like this, "Your daughter did not come home yesterday. She left and got in a car with a man who was parked down the street.  She was very disrespectful." My immediate response was to ask whether or not the police had been called.  Instead of a yes, I received an explanation as to why the police had not been called and why they did not go looking for her.

At that moment, 5 hours and 300 miles away, my body went numb and my vision blurred.  How do I call my partner and share that our daughter is missing from my relative's home? How do I share that they are not looking for her? That they have not called the police? I think my heart stopped beating. I have never been so terrified in all of my life. I had to call my partner.

My partner and I immediately called the police at which time they informed us that because she had left the house voluntarily, we needed to call back in 24 hours if she had not returned home. At this point, she had already been gone for 18 hours; a point that fell flat as the police were not willing to search for her.  Again, I went numb.  We made a "missing person poster" and headed to Ohio.

Once in Ohio, we contacted the police again. They still were not helpful so we created our own search team consisting of other family members and began looking for her ourselves. After 5 days of not hearing from her, my daughter finally called her older sister from an unknown number. Her sister informed her that we were looking for her and my daughter gave approximate directions to her location.

When we got her in the car, upon looking at her, my soul shattered.  I knew what had happened to her without her saying a word.  She possessed a bag that only contained baby oil, a razor and shaving cream, lingerie type underwear and a disposable minute phone. She was dressed in clothing that I had not purchased. She was wearing makeup that I had not purchased. She was being sex trafficked.

My child had only been sixteen for 2 days before she went missing. She went willingly with this strange man because he said that he would be her friend. She had met him at a gas station where he was employed. During the time that she was gone, her address had been changed, she had been issued an Ohio ID, and had been held captive in a place she did not know. The man threatened to harm both her and our family. She was only supposed to be going to a carryout when she reached out for help.

I took her to a Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner program to receive confidential and expert care. This is where I learned the details of her assault. Her points of vulnerability were exploited. She was a young female of color, with a history of being a runaway, mental helath issues and a past victim of sexual assault in a city that was unfamiliar.  All of these things that I knew about her should have alerted me to not let her stay with relatives; not even temporarily.  After all, I train and facilitate on these issues for a living.

My daughter was one of the fortunate ones. She had supportive people who were actively looking for her. It is essential for families to remain a viable option of unconditional support for a victimized child as she may be told that no one cares and that the perpetrator is the only person who "cares".

When a child is victimized, the family is victimized as well. It is imperative to provide the family with the tools and resources necessary to provide a supportive environment to the child who was victimized. So what can you do to help? Find out what programs exist in your area. Volunteer at an organization that is providing services. Donate to an organization. Becomce equipped to recognize vulnerability and become an educator in your community.  There is something we can all do.

TAKE ACTION: Learn how to end child sex trafficking in your community. Help to raise awareness. Read, share and post this fact sheet about child victims of human trafficking through your social media, personal and professional networks.  We must work together to protect our children.

Chéree Thomas is Program Director at the Michigan Coalition to End Domestic and Sexual Violence and a member of the Michigan Human Trafficking Task Force.